A great many of the current and growing small business enterprises in areas that include agro-processing, craft, clothing, fabric design and foods, to name a few, had their origins in initiatives undertaken by individuals and groups of women from poor rural communities searching for ways to subsidise modest existing incomes through one form or another of self-employment. There were instances, again, many of them, in which the particular skills involved in the various pursuits had to be learnt and even as that substantive learning process was ensuing there was the added task of learning how to run a business. The latter, in many cases, proved to be far more challenging than had been originally envisaged.
The gathering of more than 30 women comprising the Mahaica Women’s Group began to work together through force of circumstances. They had discovered, through community-based discourses that their respective situations dictated that they pick themselves up by their bootstraps and identify a line of business, all while sobered by the knowledge that their circumstances allowed no room for failure. That is how the Mahaica Women’s Group was created.
